


Hostage Situation

by Vlara



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Aggressive Hawke, Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, M/M, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Nudity, Regret, Rite of Tranquility, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 13:43:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vlara/pseuds/Vlara
Summary: Fenris is taken hostage by Meredith and used as leverage against Hawke.





	Hostage Situation

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story several years ago and am posting it here because I just now got around to getting an account. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Fenris regretted many things. Given the opportunity, he could spend an entire second lifetime wallowing in the regrets of the first. How fascinating, how horrifying and wondrous that in his great mountain of regret, a simple word was the greatest of all. It had been merely hours ago, but it seemed like days, years, like he was sifting through piles of memories, reaching far back. Hawke had come to him in his derelict, commandeered mansion as he always did, and, as always, he had asked the elf to join him. He was answering a fretful letter from Orsino. Yet again, he was trying to drag his once-lover out to fight for a people he openly loathed. His hatred of mages was as defining as the deep lines of lyrium they carved into his skin. Even with Danarius dead, even though he loved Hawke in a way he did not think he was capable of, he despised mages with seething ferocity, so he looked down on the man he refused to touch because it inspired equal parts disgust and desire from his second floor landing and said, "No."

The sun had barely risen. Its rays streamed through his East-facing front door, framing the sturdy human in other-worldly light as his sorrow darkened his chocolate brown eyes. It reminded Fenris of the promises of heaven and of the cursed, unnatural powers flowing within the man. Both thoughts disturbed him, so he turned on his heel and retreated, sitting down on his threadbare chair in silence. Hawke still stood in the hall, out of his sight. He imagined the despair he felt, that he had been feeling for the years since the elf had fled his bed. It pleased him he had so much power over a mage, that he had one of the world's strongest a desperate mess at his feet, and he hated himself for feeling that way, for he adored the man for who he was nearly as much as he loathed him for what he was. So he leaned forward with his head in hands and his eyes closed as he waited for Hawke to leave, to go get Aveline, the only other warrior available to help him with whatever magic-laden crisis he had. Each step he took in his heavy metal Champion boots, bearing the weight of the city on his back, seem to shake the walls, shake Fenris's very core, and when he shut the door behind him, the mansion was as silent and dark as it would have been had its owner changed his mind.

If he had to do it over, he would have gone. He would have run out the door to catch Hawke and apologized instead of going to take a bath. He would have glared at Orsino while he discussed his problem instead of holding his breath under the water for as long as he could to try to push his roiling thoughts from his mind. He would have made caustic comments about Hawke's decisions instead of being caught off guard by a regimen of Templars. He would have been beside the man he loved instead of bound to the wall. But he had said, "No."

Meredith laughed as he tugged at his chains for the thousandth time. "You can't break through them, elf, and your little phasing trick won't work either. Those are specially designed just for monsters like you." She tilted her head back and laughed as Fenris snarled at her. His wrists were chained up and out, and he had similar cuffs and chains on his ankles. They had not given him any clothes after they dragged him from his bathtub, presumably because he had killed four of them as they tried, but he was more enraged by his nudity than ashamed of it.

"What do you want with me?" he demanded even though he knew exactly why he was there, knew they had already gotten what they wanted from him.

"You may be mad now, elf," she said, turning toward him with a mad gleam in her eyes, "but you will thank me in the end. I know how you feel about mages." She drifted closer, trailing her gaze along him appraisingly. Her finger lightly traced one of the white markings on his chest. Her touch burned like molten metal, and he cried out. "I know what they've done to you. I am trying to protect everyone from these blood mages and abominations, can't you see that?"

He let his head droop and tried to breathe through the pain. It was worse than his former master's touch, something he hadn't thought possible. His marking sang, throbbed to a slightly different beat than normal. She grabbed him by the neck, wrenching a scream from his throat. "I asked if you could see that. I always liked you best out of that apostate's companions, and you won't even answer me?"

The slamming open of a door brought blessed relief as she released him. Somewhere, through the haze of agony, he heard his name being called as if from a dream.  _Hawke_ , his mind supplied. He peeled his olive eyes open to see the man. He was looking at him, his eyes darker and sadder than the elf had ever seen even as fury threatened to explode beneath the surface. They spoke volumes, and he wondered what his eyes were reflecting back. Was it apology? Was it regret?

Meredith's voice cut like a blade. "I'm surprised,  _Champion_ ," she spat the title in the same way she spat  _abomination_. "I would have thought you'd have friends with you. You really came alone." And Fenris realized the man  _was_  alone. There was no Aveline to take his place, no dwarf with crossbow at the ready, no pirate reaching for twin blades.

"Let him go!" Hawke's voice boomed like a drum, echoing off the walls of the Templar courtyard. He would have given anything to hear a righteous cheer with heavy brogue, a high-pitched Dalish cry, the terrifying, loathsome voice of Justice. There was just an echo and the clinks of metal as fifteen Templars drew their swords.

"Your little toy is fine for now. It's up to you if he stays that way."

Outrage flooded Hawke's expression, and Fenris realized it was for him. The mage was defending his freedom again, more fervently than he had seen him defend the freedom of any apostate they had met, even his own. "He is not a toy!" A single step in those heavy metal boots, and the pain returned, new, doubled. Had he been prepared, he might have been able to endure, but Meredith had grabbed his arm with two open palms. As it was, an agonized scream ripped from his lips; against his will, his body strained away from the pain, pulling the chains taut, writhing against them.

Distantly, he heard a voice pleading, "Stop! Please! I'll do anything! Oh, Maker, please! Stop!" He was ashamed until he realized it could not be his own because his throat burned raw with his screams. And as quickly as it began, it ended. Only the lingering phantom of pain remained. There was no strength left in him, and he fell limp against his bonds, the cuffs cutting into his skin.

"That's right," Meredith's voice was an icy wind that slid down his body and across the stone floor. "You will do anything because I have a very special kind of lyrium on my side that reacts rather violently to the regular kind, the kind some sick mage like you carved into this elf's skin. One touch," she held a finger near Fenris's chin, and he recoiled in terror, "and he is in agony."

"Please, whatever you want, just don't touch him again." He lowered his staff to the ground, held up his hands to placate her. This was not the Hawke Fenris knew. The Hawke he knew would have spit in her face, would have snubbed his nose at the crazed woman's threats.

"It's nothing so terrible. I just want you to go home with your little toy and stay away from all this magic business." They both knew there was more. There had to be more. "Just give up on magic altogether."

"We'll go. Kirkwall is yours. Please, just get away from him." Fear shook the normally strong voice.

She laughed again; the sound grated into his delicately pointed ear. "You must think me a fool. I know you'll turn on me in a moment." A plan to do just that had already formulated itself in Hawke's mind. They all knew that. "I want you to get away from magic entirely. I want to take it from you." Her mouth twisted into a sinister grin.

The strong man he knew would have said, "Never." He would have put his nose in the air and sneered, "I'd rather be dead." But he didn't. He looked at Fenris. He gazed into his eyes with a look that said a thousand things the elf couldn't understand. Their prolonged gaze ended when Meredith's tongue landed on a lyrium line on his shoulder. White hot agony lanced through him, and he groaned with the effort not to scream.

"Stop! I'll do it!" The proud, arrogant man he followed so willingly was on his knees. "I'll become Tranquil! Just stop hurting him!"

Meredith pulled away with a triumphant smile. "How wonderful! I was positive this would be much harder. Did you hear that, elf? You get your lover back minus his wretched magic. I've seen the two of you argue in the streets. Imagine how much more obedient he will be." And as she walked toward the mage, a new agony began. Fenris did imagine. The idea of a Hawke without magic was somewhat appealing, but a Hawke without his trademark superior smirk, without opposing everything that tried to restrain him? A Hawke that didn't fight with him or look at him with those eyes he couldn't understand? That was unthinkable. The very illusion of him trailing along like a ghost or a shadow, like an empty _Not Hawke_ , made his stomach lurch.

Meredith circled around the Champion, dragging her talonlike fingers across his chest and shoulders. "Any last words before we begin the ritual, apostate?"

He looked older in the moment he met Fenris's eyes, like a decade had passed in the space of a breath. "Fenris," he whispered.

"No!" the elf cried, his voice scratching against his raw throat, "Don't do it, Hawke! Garrett, please, don't do this!" The chains holding him rattled as he struggled.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."

There was silence for a moment as they drank each other in, as the ex-slave slowly processed that the man he was in love with loved him back. "Ohoho! Isn't that perfect! At least you know now before it's too late. Don't worry, elf. You can still fuck him. He won't care."

There was a tenuous hold inside of Fenris on the beast that Danarius had created to slaughter all who opposed him. He struggled with it from the moment he lay on the operating table, lyrium still cooling in his veins. It was her words that set it free once more. Fenris roared, loud and terrifying, like the wolf he was, and he pulled against his bonds with renewed strength. With four loud crashes, the chains burst from their anchors to the wall and streamed behind him like crepe paper as he flew around the room, murdering all fifteen Templars before they had time to process what was happening. Their bodies lay like rag dolls with bloody red holes in their chests. Before he could reach Meredith, she sprang away.

"This is not over!" she bellowed, then fled into a nearby corridor. He moved to give chase, but was stopped by a hand on his leg. The touch didn't burn, but soothed.  _Healing magic_ , he realized, but for once, did not recoil.

"You saved me," Hawke breathed.

"I couldn't let you do  _that_  to yourself." He shivered at the thought, then bent down to wrap his arms around the bigger man until the two of them stopped shaking. Thin, lyrium-lined fingers clutched at a furred collar. "Hawke… Garrett, I–" The words stuck in his throat.

"I thought you hated mages," the man whispered, his beard tickling Fenris's temple.

"I hate monsters. I have only recently realized you don't have to be a mage to be one." The arms around him tightened.

"What now?"

"Now, I go get my armor and sword out of the chest that bitch stashed them in, and we rid the world of another monster." Hawke chuckled against his bare skin, and made no move to release him. "Garrett," he whispered. "Tell me you love me again."

"Don't tell me what to do," he replied and kissed him like it was the first time.


End file.
